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Flashback - Trent Johnston inspires the Bears to a First Grade Minor Premiership

UTS North Sydney District Cricket Club | February 15, 2026

In 1998/99, the Bears won the First Grade Minor Premiership and were named Sydney Morning Herald First Grade Team of the Year, both for the second successive season. Agonisingly, they were defeated in the semi final by Randwick, but the team was one for the ages - in particular featuring Trent Johnston in the year he made his NSW debut, as well as Stuart MacGill.

Here we reproduce the report from skipper, Phil Marks, from the club's 1999 Annual Report.

A Minor Premiership for a second successive season is a true indication of the consistency of the First Grade team. The fact that we performed below standard in the finals was merely a lack of application and by no means a reflection on commitment or ability.

Whilst it was disappointing to finish poorly, I know that we have all learned a great deal about mental pressure and the will to succeed in big match situations. Having said that, we can all be very proud of our end result which is simply that we were the best performing team throughout the season, resulting in us again winning the Sydney Morning Herald Award for Team of the Year.

Of the 15 rounds in the competition proper, 11 were won (including three outright) and only four were lost. Unfortunately, we finished by losing both the preliminary final against Randwick and the semi-final against Balmain, the ultimate winners of the Belvidere Cup. Many positives came out of the season including:

Trent Johnston winning a "Blue" cap and taking 56 wickets @ 16.5, just reward for his last two years of work.
Glen Sullivan earning his First Grade cap and showed that he is a First Grade bowler by capturing 14 wickets @ 15.07 from only four games and can look forward to cementing his spot.
David Gainsford showing the value of controlled line and length bowling and proving the perfect foil for TJ at the other end with 31 wickets @ 16.06.
Ben Saunders yet again contributing greatly, taking 36 wickets @ 23.17 and playing key innings as well as being our best fielder.

In the batting department, Nigel Taylor was again our most valuable batsman scoring 730 runs at 38.42, was well supported by brother Darren Taylor (550 runs @ 26.19) and Jimmy Peterson (397 runs @ 33.08) to go together with his 20 wickets @ 13.08. Group these contributions with support from Michael Gerits, David Sharp, Ashley Shoobridge, Luke Hodgson and Graeme Doig in the batting and Alan Butterworth, Stuart MacGill, and Matthew White in the bowling, and the season was an all-round success.

We didn't see too much of Stuart MacGill due to his commitments with NSW and Australia, yet when he did represent us, he proved his class. He only played three games for us and still managed to take wickets @ 14.53 and did so with terrific passion.

We witnessed the trialling of 'tub' wickets this season on the No. 1 Oval and whilst they were not a total success, they were certainly not a failure. The low scores recorded would suggest that more work needs to be done to ensure a more consistent playing surface. Congratulations and thanks to Peter Devlin and his men for the extra workload that they had to contend with.

Thank you to Bevyn and our committee for the constant work on and off the field and to ‘Ger’ Williams for his support and efforts looking after us as ground manager. A big thank you also to our 20th century scorer Tony Johnston for his work, all done with a smile which is very refreshing.

Thanks to all our loyal supporters for spending time with us on weekends, it is very much appreciated. Finally, to all the players that represented the First Grade side, congratulations on the season, thanks for the support and I look forward to us defending our Minor Premiership next time around and hopefully taking out the big one. We're due.